Anyone here homebrew beer?

tschu said:
Bump.

Just gave my first ever batch a try. A pale ale - it has only been carbonating in the bottles for a week but it is already impressively carbonated. Tastes a little young though; I'm going to keep it sitting for another week or two.

I also have a honey ale fermenting - a recipe of my own design so we'll see how that goes, lol!

I always thought it would be interesting so I gave it a try...making beer is really fun. If you like beer, cooking, making/building things, or are just looking for a neat hobby I encourage you to give it a try.
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:thumbs I've taken a hiatus from brewing for a couple years. I need to pull out the equipment from the basement and get back into it this summer!

 
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I've been homebrewing for about two years, havent made a batch recently though. We've always done all grain. The only extra equipment that requires is a mash tun. You can get elaborate with it but we just use a cooler with a perforated stainless steel false bottom. Every batch we've done has been better than most anything you can buy. Beers we've brewed;

Amber ale with cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove

Hefeweizen

Porter

IPA (was exceptionally good)

Nut Brown Ale (blind taste tested better Sam smiths or tommyknocker)

Summer wheat wit

Black IPA (my fav so far)

We make 10 gallon batches but haven't got into kegging it yet.

 
My god, the first batch is ready to drink, and it is delicious! Bottling the honey ale and brewing up a porter tomorrow too. I'm having so much fun with this hobby so far.

 
I built my own 13 gallon stainless conical fermenter and a 24 gallon stainless boil pot with a coiled copper wort chiller. We can chill to about 68 degrees from boiling in about 15-20 minutes. Got one of those huge white coolers they sell at Same to mash in. The smaller coolers wouldn't hold it all cuz we're usually using about 20 lbs of grain. The whole setup works very nicely. It's a great hobby and the beer really is as good or better than most anything you can buy.

 
Been wanting to do this for long time. Was thinking of going the Mr. Beer route but, most of the beers is like take for ever to lager. Doesn.t seem worth the trouble for two half gallons though. Any thoughts?

 
MLB 51 said:
Been wanting to do this for long time. Was thinking of going the Mr. Beer route but, most of the beers is like take for ever to lager. Doesn.t seem worth the trouble for two half gallons though. Any thoughts?
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Mr. Beer can be an okay way to get into the hobby, but the beer isn't going to be that great. You can get a basic kit from your local homebrew store and make much better beer. JMO...............check out homebrewtalk.com if you want to research the hobby.

 
BIGREDIOWAN said:
MLB 51 said:
Been wanting to do this for long time. Was thinking of going the Mr. Beer route but, most of the beers is like take for ever to lager. Doesn.t seem worth the trouble for two half gallons though. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Mr. Beer can be an okay way to get into the hobby, but the beer isn't going to be that great. You can get a basic kit from your local homebrew store and make much better beer. JMO...............check out homebrewtalk.com if you want to research the hobby.
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thanks for the info. The only way I could see any worth in this is to brew large batches. I'll check it out.

 
MLB 51 said:
BIGREDIOWAN said:
MLB 51 said:
Been wanting to do this for long time. Was thinking of going the Mr. Beer route but, most of the beers is like take for ever to lager. Doesn.t seem worth the trouble for two half gallons though. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Mr. Beer can be an okay way to get into the hobby, but the beer isn't going to be that great. You can get a basic kit from your local homebrew store and make much better beer. JMO...............check out homebrewtalk.com if you want to research the hobby.
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thanks for the info. The only way I could see any worth in this is to brew large batches. I'll check it out.
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definitely skip the Mr. Beer kits. I thought about starting that way too...but you'll be much more pleased with the results if you actually brew it yourself. Mr. Beer is a cold brew (meaning you don't boil or add ingredients at timed intervals like every beer you've ever really tasted does). And you're forced to use their ingredients.

Homebrewtalk is a great forum...and also check out Austin Homebrew and Midwest Brewing Supplies for everything you need. Just buy a basic kit from one of those stores, read up on what the brewing process really entails. These couple threads might get you started:

http://www.homebrewt...ng-howto-99139/

http://www.homebrewt...ing-pics-75231/

Also, feel free to post here in this thread. It looks like we have several Huskerboard members that will be willing to offer advice!

The more people we can get to stray from the typical domestics in this country...the better!

 
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Yeah, I agree with the 'just buy a normal kit' statement. I found it extremely easy to get into even without all the hand-holding of a Mr Beer kit. Plus I know some guys who did the Mr. beer kit and my stuff is waaay better than theirs!

Might need to find an old fridge so I can make an oktoberfest lager later in the summer

 
Alright, so, the honey ale has been carbonating only for a week and a half, but i have been trying a couple as time passes to sort of get a sense of how the beer changes over time.

First of all, the beer is more hoppy than I wanted. I believe that I miscalculated the alpha acid amount by a little bit - it tastes like about 30 IBU instead of 20 which was my target. Second, there is a sort of appley-vinegarey flavor in the background that shouldn't be there. It was pretty strong on Saturday, it seems to have faded by a decent amount by today though. Research says acetaldehyde might be the culprit and more bottle conditioning might cure it. Hopefully so - another couple weeks conditioning will probably be in order.

It isn't a bad beer really, it just isn't the light, malty-sweet brew I was hoping for. It is more of a light dry ale with a crisp hop bite. Good news: The clarity is outstanding. I mean, it looks filtered and is a bright golden amber. Pretty proud of the overall look.

 
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tschu said:
Alright, so, the honey ale has been carbonating only for a week and a half, but i have been trying a couple as time passes to sort of get a sense of how the beer changes over time.

First of all, the beer is more hoppy than I wanted. I believe that I miscalculated the alpha acid amount by a little bit - it tastes like about 30 IBU instead of 20 which was my target. Second, there is a sort of appley-vinegarey flavor in the background that shouldn't be there. It was pretty strong on Saturday, it seems to have faded by a decent amount by today though. Research says acetaldehyde might be the culprit and more bottle conditioning might cure it. Hopefully so - another couple weeks conditioning will probably be in order.

It isn't a bad beer really, it just isn't the light, malty-sweet brew I was hoping for. It is more of a light dry ale with a crisp hop bite. Good news: The clarity is outstanding. I mean, it looks filtered and is a bright golden amber. Pretty proud of the overall look.
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Did you pay attention to the temperature you fermented at? What was the yeast strain? What was that strains optimal temperature to ferment at?

 
Tried to ferment at 70 - its kind of hard to control the temp because I have roommates turning the AC/heat on and off, up and down, but I did start brewing it up on the day of the canceled spring game so I know it was cool for the start of the fermentation. Unfortunately I live in an apartment so I don't have any way to have much control over the temperature other than putting it in an interior out of the way closet and hoping for the best. It also started bubbling quickly - within about 2 hours - and the airlock bubbled extremely fast, much faster than my other two batches, for the first day and a half at least.

 
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